PAWLENTY: I'm Tim Pawlenty, and I'm running for president of the
United States.

AMANPOUR: Lots of candidates, but no clear front-runner. I asked
former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty how he'll break out of the pack.

PAWLENTY: If somebody elbows me, they'll probably get an elbow back.

AMANPOUR: And Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels says he has other
priorities.

(on-screen): How difficult was it for you to say that you loved
your family more than your country?

(voice-over): And as the Republican field grow, our roundtable
sizes up the contenders.

Then, facing the future. The class of 2011 is ready to work, but
where are the jobs? Graduates ask top CEOs how they can get an edge in
this troubled economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from the Newseum in Washington, "This Week" with
Christiane Amanpour starts right now.

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, and lots in store for you today.
But first, some late news since your morning papers.

President Obama heads to Joplin, Missouri, today to tour the site of
that deadly tornado. The president will meet with local residents and
speak at a memorial service for the victims. A hundred and thirty-nine
people were killed in the twister that struck a week ago today.

In Afghanistan, officials say a NATO air strike targeting insurgents
instead killed 14 civilians, all women and children. Afghan leaders say
the bombing was in retaliation for an attack on an American base on
Saturday, and a NATO delegation is heading to the scene to investigate.

And Sarah Palin's campaign-style "One Nation" bus tour kicks off
today right here in Washington, D.C. And it's touching off a fresh
round of presidential speculation, but will she really run? Here's
ABC's David Kerley.

KERLEY: Good morning, Christiane. It is a bit of a political
mystery and this bus tour, as well. Here's what we know. Sarah Palin
says she will start this bus tour of the northeast here in Washington
today.

Here's what we don't know. Where is the bus? Is she speaking?
Where does she go next? Is this all a publicity stunt or is this really
a launch of a presidential campaign?

The plan, according to her political action committee, is to visit
historical sites. We're hearing Gettysburg, the Liberty Bell. She'll
also go to an early primary site, New Hampshire. This is unfriendly
territory for her, so she may be testing the waters a little bit there.
And, you know, she kind of announced all this with a very slick video
showing the bus being dressed up in a grizzly bear at the beginning.
Not sure if it was a mama grizzly or not.

Aides promised a schedule for today, this weekend, and we haven't
seen anything yet. So is this Palin in perfect surprise mode for the
media or a seat-of-the-pants plan? We don't really know. She's really
not played by establishment rules and has had some success. She is
asking for donations, Christiane, on this bus tour, which apparently
starts somewhere in Washington sometime today.

AMANPOUR: David, thanks so much.

And so while Sarah Palin keeps us guessing, other candidates are
getting serious. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney officially
launches his campaign on Thursday in New Hampshire. Former Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum does the same on June 6th in his home state. And
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann tells supporters that she'll make, quote,
"an all-important announcement" next month in her birthplace of
Waterloo, Iowa.

But one candidate took the plunge this week. Former Minnesota
Governor Tim Pawlenty made it official in Des Moines on Monday. His
announcement tour then wound through Florida and ended up in New York,
where I caught up with him.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: What seriously do you need to do to raise your profile?
Or will the system just take care of it by force of running?

PAWLENTY: Well, even now, only about 50 percent of the Republicans
nationally even know my name. So we have to get the name ID up and then
convert that, of course, to support. But if you're a serious candidate
for president, that will happen naturally over time. But I like the
fact that most of the other candidates are really well known and yet
they don't really have a strong front-running position, and that gives
us time and space to be able to advance our campaign.

AMANPOUR: Well, let's get right to the heart of the matter.
Medicare, you have said that if the Paul Ryan plan came across your desk
as president, you would sign it.

PAWLENTY: Well, let me start by saying my campaign is based around
the notion that it's time for the truth and it's time for leaders to
step forward and tell America and the American people the truth.

As to Medicare, everybody knows it's sinking. It's going broke.
The current program, Christiane, only has about 50 percent of it paid
for by either premiums or payroll taxes, and the rest is deficit
spending and debit spending or debt spending. So we have to fix it.

And President Obama has an obligation as the leader of this nation
to step forward and solve the problem, and he's basically ducking it and
then pointing fingers at everybody else.

Now, as to Paul Ryan's plan, I'll have my own plan. It'll have some
differences. For example, he didn't address Social Security. I will,
and we already are. As to Medicare, it will have some differences, but
if the only choices were doing nothing like President Obama is doing and
Paul Ryan's plan, I'd sign it.

AMANPOUR: So what would you do? What would you do -- for instance,
you mentioned Social Security. Would you raise the retirement age?

PAWLENTY: For the people who are currently in the program, no
changes. For people who are coming up on eligibility, no changes. But
for the next generation, the people who are entering the workforce, we
need to gradually raise the retirement age over time.

AMANPOUR: Let's get back to Medicare. What would you do
differently than what Paul Ryan has done? And what's wrong with this
plan that's freaking people out, apparently?

PAWLENTY: Well, the current system can't continue. But our plan is
going to have some of these features. One, we're not going to pay
Medicare providers under my plan just for volumes of services provided.
We're going to pay for better results and better health care outcome,
and we're going to put hospitals and clinics and providers on a
performance pay system, not just a volume pay system.

And we're going to give people lots of choices. If they want to
stay in the current Medicare program or whatever comes next in that
program, great, that's their choice, but we're also going to offer them
a serious of other choices so they can pick what's best for them and
their families, and then they'll have the opportunity to be in the
driver's seat.

And we'll also have incentives, financial incentives to make wise
choices as it relates to cost and quality of health care.

AMANPOUR: Do you think in the things that we're facing right now,
whether it's Medicare, whether it's the deficit, whether it's the debt,
can any of these things be tackled by one party or another? Or does it
demand and require both party action?

PAWLENTY: We hope for everybody to come together and be a team and
move forward in the right direction for the country. But as you know,
there are some sharp differences about what the correct solution is here.

So I think any doofus can go to Washington, D.C., and maintain the
status quo or incrementally change things. But for the country, the
hour is late, Christiane, and we have to take significant action soon.
This is time for people who are wanting to be leaders in a bold way to
come forward and say, "We really have to change things significantly."

AMANPOUR: Define "doofus."

PAWLENTY: That's a Minnesota term. And doofus would mean somebody
who would be relatively low performing.

AMANPOUR: All right. Let's talk about this huge debate going on in
Washington and around the country about the debt ceiling. If you were
president, would you ask Congress to raise it now?

PAWLENTY: I don't think we should raise the debt ceiling. And if
the Congress moves in that direction, the president, they better get
something really good for it. It better be permanent, and it better be
structural, like a balanced budget amendment and like permanent caps and
limits on spending that are specific, not just aspirational.

AMANPOUR: Are you being political right now or do you really,
really mean that one should not raise the debt ceiling, given the fact
that most economists say that it would -- it would make a cascade of
catastrophic economic situations?

PAWLENTY: Well, there are some serious voices challenging that very
premise. And the answer is nobody really knows, because we've not been
at this point before.

AMANPOUR: But many people would say we would be at that point at
our peril and that it is not like an argument over shutting down the
government for a few days. This is a major, major earthquake in the
economic system.

PAWLENTY: Well, again, there are -- there are people who've written
thoughtfully -- and these are serious people...

AMANPOUR: So do you not believe that, then?

PAWLENTY: Well, I'd -- what I'd...

AMANPOUR: Is your position that it would not affect the economy of
the United States or the credibility of the United States or the
creditworthiness of the United States?

PAWLENTY: My position many, many months ago when I wrote an op-ed
for one of the major national newspapers was this. President Obama was
setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt
ceiling. And at least for a while, you can take away that false choice
by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors
first, and there's enough cash flow to do that for quite some time.

AMANPOUR: Do you agree that the military budget has to be really,
really tackled very, very severely, in terms of cuts?

PAWLENTY: If you look at where -- I believe strongly that the first
responsibility of the United States federal government is to protect
this nation and our citizens, so I'm not calling for absolute or real
cuts in defense. I think the growth can be slowed down. I think
efficiencies can be found within defense. But I think those monies
should be plowed back into defense to support it.

AMANPOUR: Small government is a rallying cry of the Republican
Party. What is your vision of the size of government? You've said that
it has to be more proactive and more aggressive. How does that square
with the small government agenda?

PAWLENTY: Well, just because the government has an area of
responsibility doesn't mean it has to be the provider of the service.
If government has an ability and an interest in helping people with
certain things -- and they should, like education -- then give people
the money directly. Let them decide what's best for their family in a
marketplace.

We shouldn't have a country where the government says, "Unless
you're rich, you're condemned to go to a crappy school and your future
hinges on whether some stupid lottery ball comes out so you might be
able to go to another one." All kids, regardless of background, should
be able to go to a school of their choice and realize their dream.

And President Obama, of course, one of the first things he does when
he comes to Washington, D.C., along with the Democrat Congress who
lecture us about how they're for the poor, eliminate the scholarship
programs in Washington, D.C., one of the most pathetic things I've seen
in public policy in my life.

AMANPOUR: I sense passion and anger there. And...

PAWLENTY: Well, I was the only one in my family who was able to go
to college. And my brothers and sisters couldn't go, not because they
didn't have the capability. They didn't have the opportunity.

But we can't afford to have a country of just over 300 million
people with a third of our people uneducated or undereducated,
unskilled, unable to access the economy of today and tomorrow, being
ticked off and becoming wards of the state. That's not going to work.

And this system has to change. And the people who are defending the
status quo are the -- they got the interests of the adults instead of
the interests of our children and the future of our country. And it
does make me mad. It does make me mad. And it's hypocrisy.

AMANPOUR: You do emphasize your blue-collar upbringing. Your wife
introduces you as the salt of the earth. Do you think that gives you an
advantage when you go into a campaign like this?

PAWLENTY: If you walk into a place, you know, like the VFW in my
hometown and you walk in there at the fish fry on a Friday night like
Mary and I went to a few Friday nights ago, and there are some people in
there, you know, wearing Carhartt jackets and playing pull-tabs trying
to win the meat raffle, they don't look up and say, "Gosh, I really like
his white paper on Sarbanes-Oxley reform. That really gets me going."

They want to know not just what you have up here, they want to know,
what do you have here? And if you're going to be president of the
United States or run for president of the United States, they want to
know, who are you? Where did you come from? How were you raised? What
do you believe? Why do you believe it? What's it based on? What were
your life experience? What shaped you?

And so I'm not saying it's the difference-maker, but when you grow
up as I did, in a meat-packing town, and your mom dies when you're
young, and your dad for much of his life was a truck driver -- he got
promoted later to dispatcher and terminal manager -- you learn some
things and you see some things.

And in my hometown, when those big meat-packing plants shut down and
we had all kinds of people in town unemployed, worried about their
future, this is not some academic exercise. I saw the face of it, real
time, at a real young age.

And so when people hear that, it just gives you a chance to have
some credibility with them so they don't just think you're some pinhead,
you know, who, you know, writes nice white papers or can spout off about
these issues. You've actually lived it. You've walked in their shoes.
And it helps.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And when we come back, the man many say who could have
been a real contender, Mitch Daniels.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I know a number of you work in small business.

GINGRICH: Most important social...

BACHMANN: ... created just for this purpose.

PAWLENTY: Make our mortgage payments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: "I love my country. I love my family more." With those
words, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels took himself out of the running
the Republican nomination for president. Many conservatives were
counting on him to lead their party back to the White House.

His strong record as a fiscal conservative, his reputation for being
an innovator, and his call for a truce in the culture wars made him an
attractive choice. So this week, I traveled to Indiana to find just
what makes his political clock tick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): It's been a tough week for Governor Mitch
Daniels, and the first thing you notice is the bandage slapped across
the middle of his forehead. At the gym, someone had slammed the door on
him.

M. DANIELS: This was the day before I announced I wasn't going to
run, and the popular theory is it knocked some sense into me.

AMANPOUR: I came to meet him at Indiana's state capital to talk
about that decision and its implications for the Republican race to the
White House.

(on-screen): So many people in the party wanted to you run, and
they were disappointed. How difficult was it for you to say that you
loved your family more than your country?

M. DANIELS: That was easy to say. It's a true -- it's a true
statement. It was uncomfortable to feel two duties that I am very
passionate about, but in the end, it wasn't really any question which
came first to me.

AMANPOUR: Why do your wife and your children hate the idea so much?

M. DANIELS: We've got young women, three of them married not too
long. They're looking forward to building lives, starting families, and
this was just a disruption that they were very, very leery of, and who
wouldn't understand that?

AMANPOUR: Does it say something about the way politics is played?

M. DANIELS: If it weren't for the cheap shots and the, you know,
personal unfairnesses that would -- that would come with it, there's
also just the inevitable loss of privacy, the security, all of that.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Daniels and his wife Cheri divorced in the
1990s, and she moved to California while he raised their four daughters
here in Indiana, but they remarried after several years apart.
Unwilling to put his family through a re-airing of that story, he
decided to forego the race of a lifetime.

(on-screen): Do you think you could have beaten President Obama?

M. DANIELS: Yes, I think so. I mean, no one can know.

AMANPOUR: Business people and community leaders said that they
really felt Governor Daniels could give President Obama a run for his
money in a general election. Much has been said about Governor Daniels'
lack of charisma, but most people say that his record of success in this
conservative Midwestern state speaks for itself.

(voice-over): He tamed the public sector unions and cut the number
of state workers. Daniels lowered property taxes and invested in
infrastructure projects.

M. DANIELS: I enjoy this centennial version of the -- as we love to
say, greatest spectacle in racing. Thanks, John.

AMANPOUR: Just before today's Indianapolis 500 race, he hosted a
reception for motor sport executives that he's trying to lure here.
Doug Brown runs a local technology company. He's adding more than 100
jobs thanks to Daniels' tax incentives.

BROWN: You don't think of Indiana as a high-tech state, but his
policies really are growing jobs in that sector. Indiana had one of the
highest job growth rates for private companies in the nation.

AMANPOUR: As the governor of a small state, Daniels mingles easily
with his constituents here at the gym.

M. DANIELS: Hello. How are you all?

AMANPOUR: During his last campaign in 2008, he put out a series of
videos that he called Mitch TV. This one shows him and his wife, Cheri,
at the state fair.

C. DANIELS: Come on, Belle.

AMANPOUR: She came in second in the cow-milking contest, and he won
a second term in a landslide. Daniels was budget director under
President George W. Bush, and his attempts to control spending earned
him a nickname that he still proudly displays.

(on-screen): So you have a lot of memorabilia, including what looks
like a samurai sword. What is this here?

M. DANIELS: That's what it is. Because of my alleged thriftiness...

AMANPOUR: Slash and burning?

M. DANIELS: ... well, some said -- I had that nickname for a while,
and...

AMANPOUR: The blade?

M. DANIELS: Yes, the blade, and the nicknamer-in-chief conferred
that on me.

AMANPOUR: And that was?

M. DANIELS: President Bush.

AMANPOUR: Indiana's magnificent state capitol took 10 years to
build and came in under $2 million. That's under budget. Now, of
course, that was in 1888, but the governor likes to say it's a metaphor
for the kind of fiscal prudence that's needed in today's hard times.

(voice-over): He slashed state spending and turned a budget deficit
into a surplus, and that's what made him so attractive to his party
faithful.

M. DANIELS: The state was broke, for no good reason, except that it
had simply overspent its income seven straight years, and so we -- we
turned that around.

AMANPOUR (on-screen): It's been said that for you, if you were
running, if you became president, your agenda would be deficit, deficit,
deficit, cut it, attack it.

M. DANIELS: Yes, reduce the debt, the long-term debt facing the
country before it crushes the American dream, limits our influence in
the world, and, you know, possibly even worse consequences, and -- but
that -- to me, that is the challenge of this time.

AMANPOUR: Well, Paul Ryan has tried to put across his own budget
proposal, and it's quite controversial, particularly the Medicare aspect
of it, because clearly this one is causing people to run away from it,
not just politicians, but also people. The polls say that people do not
want their Medicare or their Medicaid touched.

M. DANIELS: Well, I'm not running away from it. I think it is the
best way.

AMANPOUR: Do you think it will be the litmus test, though, in these
-- the election coming up?

M. DANIELS: I hope so. I think it is the central dilemma. I think
it ought, therefore, to be the centerpiece of the next election, and we
ought to test the proposition -- and I have faith that the answer will
be yes -- that Americans are absolutely up to the job of making changes
necessary once they understand the facts.

AMANPOUR: Is there a way to do this in a way that does not put so
much of a burden on the individual, on the seniors?

M. DANIELS: There's a way to do it that protects the most
vulnerable seniors more. I mean, another, I think, important and
positive point to be made is that our current system is brutally
unfair. It is tilted toward higher-income people in many, many ways.
There's no reason on Earth that we should be sending Warren Buffett a
pension check or paying for Bill Gates' health care or mine, for that
matter. And in the 2.0 system of Medicare and Social Security, for the
next generation, not this one, we ought to heavily devote the resources
to those who need them most.

AMANPOUR: You've also said that tackling debt, debt, debt and
absolutely having to get that done is paramount to the survival of the
republic and that perhaps there should be a truce on some of the very,
very divisive social issues that tend to take up so much of the oxygen.
Do you still believe that?

M. DANIELS: Yes, I do. You know, not that anybody changes their
mind, not that anybody retreats one foot, just that temporarily we
address the issue that threatens us all. If this country goes broke, we
will all pay the price, black and white, gay and straight, male and
female. We are all in this together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So there's a lot of politics to talk about this weekend,
and that's exactly what we're going to do with our roundtable when we
return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Today, Republican presidential candidates are re-learning
a tough lesson: No one steals a show like Sarah Palin. The former vice
presidential candidate with a fondness for holiday weekend political
theater is launching a new round of speculation with her "One Nation"
bus tour.

And here to read the tea leaves are ABC's George Will, Democratic
strategist Donna Brazile, the former Republican National Committee
Chairman Ed Gillespie, and ABC's senior political correspondent Jonathan
Karl.

Welcome, everybody.

George, what is up? Is Sarah Palin going to run?

WILL: I don't know.

AMANPOUR: What do you think?

WILL: Two things are infinite. One is the expanding universe, and
the other is media attention to Sarah Palin, who's a genius at
manipulating it. She has several political problems, the first of which
is there's no undecided vote in this country anymore about Sarah Palin,
surely.

Second, the threshold question. It's not usually asked, but it's in
everyone's mind in a presidential election. Should we give this person
nuclear weapons? And the answer is -- answers itself there. That
doesn't mean she can't be without political consequence.

If she gets in now, it will be because, I think, Michele Bachmann is
about to get in, and they take up the same political space, and the two
of them there can be devastating to Tim Pawlenty, because he has great
appeal to the evangelical Christians who are dispositive in Iowa, and
she can divide that vote and take it away from him, and thereby help
Romney.

AMANPOUR: So do you think from all the reporting you've done, Jon,
that there is evidence of any serious laying of the ground by Sarah
Palin for a race? Or is this, as George says, really a publicity stunt?

KARL: I see absolutely no evidence that Sarah Palin is preparing to
run for president. It doesn't mean that she can change her mind, but,
look, she doesn't even have a scheduler. She has no donor network built
up. She doesn't have a press secretary. Every decision we can tell is
being made strictly by Sarah and by Todd Palin. And there is no
preparation. You talk to...

AMANPOUR: The house she's just bought and all of that stuff?

KARL: The house she bought, it's a summer home in Arizona. I don't
think that's a sign you're running for president. But, look, if you go
and you talk to activists in South Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, they
will tell you there is no sign whatsoever of Palin or any Palin
organization.

AMANPOUR: So, Ed Gillespie, given your former position, what would
the effect of a Palin candidacy be on the race?

GILLESPIE: Well, I think she does command a great deal of
attention. You know, the media have a love/hate relationship with Sarah
Palin. They hate her, but they love to cover her. So she'll have a
pretty big impact in terms of other candidates responding to, you know,
her policy proposals and her activities. But I like everyone else here
have no idea whether or not she's, you know, going to run or not.

BRAZILE: Any moment now, she's going to tweet, and we will learn
whether or not she would start off this bus tour at the Lincoln Memorial
or the Washington Monument.

Sarah Palin is a phenomenon. She doesn't need to run by the rules
established by the Republicans. She can run simply on her own
timetable, when she feels like, and she doesn't have to follow
conventional wisdom. I think she's running. She sees a big
opportunity. And you know what?

KARL: You're certainly hoping she's running, right, Donna?

BRAZILE: No. Look, I'm hoping Michele Bachmann gets in...

AMANPOUR: Well, who is -- who is the dreamboat Republican candidate
for the Democrats?

BRAZILE: We don't have one right now.

AMANPOUR: Well, who would you rather run against?

BRAZILE: Well, my man dropped out, Haley Barbour. I wanted Haley
to run because clearly I could go on TV and translate everything that he
would say. But Mitch Daniels is not in the race. Tim Pawlenty is the
person I think to beat.

AMANPOUR: Person to beat?

WILL: At this point, yes.

AMANPOUR: Who do you think, Ed?

GILLESPIE: I think it's wide open. I think that's great for our
party right now, and I think that -- I think largely the field is
formed. There may be some late entrants still to come, but I think
we've got a field right now that whomever emerges as our nominee will be
able to beat Barack Obama in 2012.

AMANPOUR: You say largely. I think you were a little bit more
definitive earlier this week. You said the field is formed; the nominee
will come from the current crop.

GILLESPIE: I said the field -- I think I said largely formed.
There may be some late entrants. My point was, I think that the -- for
most Republican activists and donors and elected officials, they're
probably going to, you know, start to sign up for somebody now in the
current field. There may be someone who comes later, but I suspect we
-- you know, the field is pretty formed. Whoever emerges is likely to
come from this crop of candidates that we have soon to get in or now.

WILL: If, however, it's not fully formed, the late entrant would
probably be Governor Perry, for several reasons, governor of Texas.
Texas is to the Republicans what California is to the Democrats, a great
source of reliable electoral votes and money. Second, in every
contested Republican nomination scramble since 1980, there has been a
Texan, John Connally, the first Bush, and the second Bush, so there is a
space there to be filled.

AMANPOUR: And you've been talking to people in Texas, right, about
this, Jon?

KARL: Yeah. And my sense is I find actually some of the least
enthusiastic about a Perry candidacy in Texas. I mean, he -- look, the
guy's never lost an election, so he's clearly formidable. He just won a
tough primary in Texas. But the reaction I got from Texans was, do you
really think America is ready to elect another Texas governor as
president right now?

AMANPOUR: Well, what about another campaign by Mitt Romney? He is
about to -- to announce next week on Thursday. He's kept a very low
profile. He hasn't been doing any major interviews other than, you
know, he's been raising a lot of money. Is this all about to change?
Are we going to see something different cropping up in the next week?

KARL: I think you're about -- look, he has been the invisible
candidate, but he's been doing all that you need to do. He's proven
that he can raise money above and beyond anybody in this field, I think
even including Sarah Palin, if she were to jump in.

And it's fascinating right now. You're seeing Romney is going to
come out. It's going to all be about the economy. The biggest weakness
he had last time was he flip-flopped on issue after issue. Now you have
the no-flip-flop Romney. He's sticking to TARP. He's sticking to
health care. He didn't even back down from ethanol subsidies, even
though he's not focusing on Iowa. You have a new Romney campaign.

BRAZILE: You make a point. Last week, he said that he helped to
save the auto industry, when a year ago he said that he was opposed to
the government bailing out the auto industry. We don't know what --
which Mitt Romney will appear this week, and I think it's called a
Bittersweet Farm. Can you imagine that, Bittersweet?

AMANPOUR: Better or bitter?

BRAZILE: Is it Bittersweet? I think it's Bittersweet Farm.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, because he's -- you know, he's
obviously had a candidacy already. What makes him likely to do better
this time around?

GILLESPIE: Well, I think he does have the -- you know, all the
markings of a second-time candidate. He's, I think, improved on the
stump. I think he's much more comfortable as a candidate. And the --
in terms of the political environment, the economy is the number-one
concern, and he has credibility when he's talking about economic policy
and job creation.

AMANPOUR: So that will be his strength?

GILLESPIE: I think that's probably his strong suit, exactly, yeah.

AMANPOUR: Stronger than for Tim Pawlenty?

GILLESPIE: Look, I think -- you know, as you know, I'm neutral, and
I think that we have a field that, you know, is good.

AMANPOUR: But on the empirical facts?

GILLESPIE: You know, Pawlenty has a great record as a governor of a
very blue state. Governor Romney has a great record in terms of
private-sector understanding of the economy and a critique of
Obamanomics. You know, Governor Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain,
everybody has, you know, their own assets. Everybody has questions they
have to answer, as well.

WILL: Let's, however, remember that at this point in the 2008
electoral cycle four years ago exactly, the prohibitive favorite was
Rudy Giuliani.

BRAZILE: Right, right.

AMANPOUR: Who is making some noises. But let me get to Medicare.
And this week, there was yet another hiccup in the great Medicare
debate. And your former president, President Clinton, jumped into
that. Let's play what he said to Paul Ryan at the fiscal conference
this week here in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I'm glad we won this race in New York, but I hope the
Democrats don't use it as an excuse to do nothing on Medicare.

RYAN: My guess is it's going to sink into paralysis, is what's
going to happen. And you know the math. I mean, it's just -- we knew
-- we knew we were putting ourselves out there, but you got to start --
you've got to get out there. We've got to get this thing moving.

CLINTON: If you want to talk about it...

RYAN: Yeah, I'll give you a call. Good, thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So they were obviously talking about the New York 26th,
the race that went for the Democrats, and they said Medicare was the big
bear in the race. Are people going to be running away from this? Or
are we going to -- are the Republicans going to be able to coalesce
around the current Medicare plan?

WILL: They're going to coalesce around the idea that the question
is not do we keep Medicare as we've got it now or is it some other plan,
because the one thing we can't have forever is the unsustainable plan we
have now.

I don't think the New York race will drive people away from this,
because it would have been a different outcome. Too close for comfort,
but a different outcome. The Republican almost certainly would have won
if there hadn't been one of these free-booting third-party candidates
who spent $3 million, every penny of it his. He got no contributions,
as far as anyone can tell.

Beyond that, what the Republicans have learned is -- Pat Moynihan
used to tell me this -- after long public life, he said you cannot
exaggerate how often and how simply you have to say things in public
life to get this country's attention.

AMANPOUR: So do you agree that the Democrat won only because the
race was split?

BRAZILE: This race, it was won on three issue, Medicare, Medicare,
Medicare. And Kathy ran a great race. She was on message. She pointed
out that her opponent, Ms. Corwin, supported the Ryan plan. That was a
kiss of death, and the Republicans know it. The Republicans are on
record now to end Medicare as we know it. They're going to have to deal
with that.

And let me just tell you, Bill Clinton was thrilled that Kathy
Hochul won that race. And for Democrats up on Capitol Hill, they have
new life, new air under their wings.

KARL: But Bill Clinton also made an important statement there. He
said that I hope Democrats don't use this as an excuse to do nothing,
and that is exactly what Democrats are doing right now. There is no
Democratic plan on reforming Medicare. We're waiting for the president
to come out with a plan. The president's old budget lost 97-0 in a vote
in the Senate. So, you know, I mean, who -- Republicans are scared.
They are definitely scared. But there is nothing coming from the other
side.

BRAZILE: But the Ryan plan -- the Ryan plan lost. The Toomey plan
lost. Look, the Senate was in a mood to just say no so they can get out
of town. But the Republicans have consistently tried to kill Medicare
for the last 30 years, and the Democrats...

GILLESPIE: No, that -- that is not true.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLESPIE: We've been trying to save Medicare. And the only party
that has a plan to save Medicare is the Republican Party. The Democrats
in the Senate, who have controlled the Senate for -- for, you know,
three years, going on three years now, haven't passed a budget in 760
days.

AMANPOUR: OK.

GILLESPIE: They have nothing to offer the American people. That
will be the choice.

AMANPOUR: And we will continue this discussion in the green room.
And Mitch Daniels told me that actually he thought Medicare should be a
litmus test in this coming-up election. So join us there at
abcnews.com/thisweek, where you can also find our fact checks of today's
interviews from PolitiFact.

And when we return, getting jobs and hiring in this economy, but
first, the Sunday funnies, so stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And now, the Sunday funnies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMMEL: The field for the Republican candidate for president is
finally taking shape. After announcing that he would not run last week,
he made a big announcement. Donald Trump told "Fox and Friends" this
morning he might run. See, that's the kind of decisiveness we need.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Huge story. This is a bombshell. Indiana Governor Mitch
Daniels has announced he will not run for president in 2012. Yeah,
Daniels reached the decision after early polling determined that even he
didn't know who Mitch Daniels was.

FALLON: President Obama is on a big European trip this week, and I
heard that he's sleeping at Buckingham Palace when he visits England.
That's when you know the U.S. is short on cash, when even Obama's like,
"Hey, is it cool if I crash at your place? No, couch is fine, couch is
fine."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And when we come back, what does it take to land a job in
this climate? We'll connect people who need a job with some people who
could offer them, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WASHINGTON: You will fail at some point in your life. Accept it.
You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at
something, there's no doubt about it. And I know that's probably not a
traditional message for a graduation ceremony, but, hey, I'm telling
you, embrace it.

M. OBAMA: As you climb those career ladders, just remember to reach
down and pull others up behind you.

(APPLAUSE)

That's what so many folks have done for you all, and now it is your
turn to repay the favor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And so the caps and gowns are put away and the real work
of finding a job begins. And I'm joined now by four members of the
class of 2011: Stuart Watkins of Louisiana State University; Savayia
Singh of the University of California at Berkeley; Melech Thomas of
Howard University, right here in D.C.; and Lauren Kiel of Harvard.

And I'm also joined by two business leaders, Doug Imbruce, who's the
founder and CEO of the Internet start-up Qwiki, not so many years from
his own commencement day; and Mort Zuckerman, chairman and founder of
Boston Properties, publisher of the New York Daily News, and
editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report.

Thank you all for joining us. And we're going to get some wisdom
from all of you.

But first I want to start, Savayia, with you. You're graduating.
What are your prospects for a job? What are your chief concerns right now?

SINGH: Well, my chief concerns is, honestly, finding a position
that I can use the valuable skills and knowledge that I've acquired in
the last four years.

AMANPOUR: So what's happening? Do you have a job prospect out there?

SINGH: I -- unfortunately, I do not have a prospective job. I have
definitely put myself out there, applied to as many positions that I
would like to eventually work in, but I don't have any job offers at the
moment.

AMANPOUR: Are you afraid?

SINGH: Oh, I'm terrified. I -- again, the anxieties (inaudible)
not having a secure future are very just all over the place right now.

AMANPOUR: And, Lauren, you went to Harvard. Many people think that
that is an automatic entry into a great-paying job. What are your
prospects right now?

KIEL: So I've actually decided to postpone my job search for
another year and go to graduate school next year.

AMANPOUR: And like all of you, Stuart, I guess you're probably
burdened by quite a lot of debt, student loans.

WATKINS: Absolutely. It's something that I think our generation of
college students have really -- have had to face, taking out loans just
so they can, you know, go -- go to those four-year institutions. I'm
fortunate to where I actually have two offers right now, but I think one
of the things that I'm coming to terms with is, they're not in fields of
which I want to pursue or that I want a career in.

AMANPOUR: And, Melech, where do you sit right now in terms of do
you have a job? Do you have a prospect of paying down your student loans?

THOMAS: Well, I actually have no student loans from my
undergraduate, but I have to take out $20,000 for my first year of
graduate school.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to you both. You've now listened to them.
You see what they've studied. You've heard their prospects. Mort, as
the owner of a real estate company, as the publisher of newspapers and
magazines, what do you think they need to do? And are they hirable,
what you've just heard right now?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, I don't know enough about their individual skills
and capacities, but this is the worst atmosphere for employment that
we've had in 50 or 60 years. I mean, just think of the fact, in the
'70s, '80s and '90s, the United States created over 20 million jobs in
each one of those decades. In the first decade of this country, we
created zero jobs.

If I were hiring today, I would look for people of these qualities
and characteristics, but I'd look for a particular thing, quite
frankly. The one thing that I look for more than anything else is some
evidence of determination, which to me is the most important quality in
terms of how people will do in their career.

AMANPOUR: And, Doug, you set up your own company. You were an
entrepreneur. I mean, you just didn't wait for the jobs to come to you.

IMBRUCE: I've always advised individuals to look not just for a
career, but for a calling. And I think that if you can demonstrate to a
potential organization, potential employer that you have true passion
about their product, I mean, besides integrity and, you know, an obvious
academic background, that's what we look for at my company, Qwiki, is we
look for a real passion about our products.

AMANPOUR: We've heard the advice and the analysis from the
entrepreneurs and CEOs, but for you, when you were told that if you
worked hard and you got into a university and if you got into a great
university and you spent the four years, that it would be an inevitable
passport to a good job. Do you feel betrayed? Do you feel like the
American dream hasn't quite played its part for you?

THOMAS: Well, to be quite frank, especially people of African
descent, the American dream has never really been a reality. And so as
much determination as some of my peers even at Howard University have
had, because African-Americans usually have to work twice as hard to get
a job in a field where the job market is already shrinking, it becomes
very, very frightening and very, very paralyzing for some of the
students. And so I won't say betrayed, because the American dream never
really promised us much.

AMANPOUR: Stuart, it did promise for people like you.

WATKINS: Yeah, I did feel a sense of, you know, the minute I
stepped out of college, you know, I was going to be able to hit the
ground running, and now I'm just seeing that, yes, the offers that I
have on the table are great, but I want to explore my passions. I want
to explore what I -- you know, what I want -- what I want to do from
here on out. And it's just not right there at the moment.

AMANPOUR: And another thing that we're reading is that the major
that you choose determines more and more now your success, not just at
getting a job, but moving from middle even to upper class, also just
getting a good salary for your life. Do you feel like you've taken the
right majors?

SINGH: I almost don't feel like I have, like my major technically
on my degree is interdisciplinary studies.

AMANPOUR: What does that mean?

SINGH: Exactly. It doesn't have a solid definition. I just took
that overarching title and created my own major. But when just looking
at it, it doesn't -- it honestly doesn't say anything about myself.

AMANPOUR: And, Lauren, even though you've graduated from Harvard
and you're going to University College in London, do you feel you've
done the right major to get yourself a real leg up in the job market?

KIEL: So I was a major in history and literature of America, which
for most doesn't really mean a whole lot in terms of what is that for a
career, what is that for professional development, so I think that's --
and that's for a lot of Harvard students. We studied biology. We
studied English. We studied these subjects that don't necessarily lead
to job. You're going to something to pre-professionalize yourself or
you have to, you know, make your -- put your leg up in terms of
internships or getting yourself out there with working on the newspaper
or working on some type of more professional way to show that you can do
-- that you can do something career-wise.

AMANPOUR: Well, we do have a publisher sitting right here.

(LAUGHTER)

ZUCKERMAN: Well, I -- I will put it this way. The print publishing
business has now climbed to the number one on the list of American
oxymorons. As you probably know, the print publishing business is very,
very difficult. And what you've seen in that particular world is a
tremendous shrinkage of the number of people who are working in it. So
I would recommend that you hire -- ask this guy for a job, because he's
in that kind of high-tech world, which is growing quite dramatically.

AMANPOUR: And are you hiring?

IMBRUCE: You know, it's really interesting to come here.

ZUCKERMAN: I applied for a job earlier.

IMBRUCE: It's really interesting to talk about the dearth of jobs
available, because in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, you literally
cannot hire fast enough. I mean, candidates are wined and dined. It's
unbelievable. So I would say that if you're considering a major:
engineering, engineering, engineering. America needs more engineers,
period.

SINGH: I don't have a degree in technology or engineering. I feel
that's one of the main problems. I...

AMANPOUR: But you didn't have a degree, did you?

IMBRUCE: I had a degree in English and comparative literature.

AMANPOUR: OK, fine. See?

(CROSSTALK)

ZUCKERMAN: ... high-tech world, right?

AMANPOUR: And, Melech, you know, go ahead. I was going to -- how
do you see the next few years for yourself?

THOMAS: I think a lot of people set themselves up in college to go
to school to find a job, but then they get their job and they get their
career and they're unsatisfied, where you have two people here that have
followed not just where the job creation market was, but they followed
their own creativity and their own imagination and they found themselves
loving what they do.

KIEL: Can I say, I think that what you're saying about being
creative and thinking outside the box is definitely something our class
and our generation has had to do in the past couple of years. I know
for us, at the Harvard newspaper, people when I was a freshman were
walking out the door to the New York Times or to the Wall Street
Journal. And now that's just not an option for us anymore, so we're
considering technology and media in a different way.

IMBRUCE: And that's where the next biggest company will come from.
I mean, Facebook, which is going to be, you know, probably one of the
world's biggest technology companies fairly soon, came out of a dorm
room, you know, at Harvard sophomore year. So I think...

(CROSSTALK)

ZUCKERMAN: I'm thinking of changing my name to Zuckerberg...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

WATKINS: Well, just to build off of what Lauren said, I feel like
our generation is extremely resourceful. I mean, we grew up with
information at our fingertips. And at the end of the day, we're going
to have to put two and two together. And this just not having a job
right after college is a small roadblock into what's to come, I think.

AMANPOUR: So what would you say -- what would you say is a wrap-up,
is a final piece -- what would you say is a final piece of advice for
our grads here?

ZUCKERMAN: Well, I mean, frankly, I would just get in the swing.
You just have to get out there in that world and find a job, the best
job that you can. I would not let it go -- too much time go by, because
if you're sitting here a year from now without a job, frankly, you're
going to be less employable than you are today.

AMANPOUR: Doug, advice, finally?

IMBRUCE: I agree with Mort. I mean, I think that, you know,
situations are temporary and skills are forever, so it absolutely makes
sense to go, get out there, get experience, and try to just be the best
version of yourself you can be, and add value, and that will set you on,
you know, certainly the right career path.

AMANPOUR: Lauren, what are you feeling now after this discussion?

KIEL: Hopefully a bit more optimistic. I think we're all kind of
charging forth knowing that, you know, our first job might not be the
job that we're going to have forever. We grew up in a world where our
grandparents -- you know, both of my grandfathers worked the same jobs
their entire lives.

ZUCKERMAN: My parents and my grandparents were immigrants. They
didn't even speak the language when they came here. So when they came
here and took the chances that it took to make this huge trip and start
off with nothing, I mean, I give that -- those folks a lot of medals for
courage.

IMBRUCE: The American dream is alive and well. I mean, I'm
surrounded in Silicon Valley by tons of entrepreneurs from, you know,
America, from abroad that have really, you know, contributed to society.

AMANPOUR: Well, on that very optimistic note, thank you to our
entrepreneur CEOs and thank you very much to our students.

And we'll be right back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And now, "In Memoriam."

SCOTT-HERON: The revolution will put you in the driver's seat. The
revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, not be televised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: We remember all of those who died in war this week. The
Pentagon released the names of nine servicemembers killed in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

And when we return, a final note about one of the world's most
wanted men finally being brought to justice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: This Memorial Day weekend, we want to focus on what's
been a great month for international justice. It began with the killing
of Osama bin Laden, and it's ending with the capture of a man accused of
orchestrating the worst massacres in Europe since World War II.

Ratko Mladic on the run for 16 years now faces genocide charges
stemming from the war in Bosnia. It's a war that I spent the better
part of a decade covering. And he'll be held to account for what a war
crimes judge has described as scenes from hell written on the darkest
pages in human history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): In the spring of 1992, Mladic, commander of
the self-declared Bosnian Serb Army, turned the city of Sarajevo into a
slaughterhouse, where neither men nor women nor innocent children were
spared.

I covered the siege as his forces used the high ground around the
city to rain gunfire and artillery on the innocent civilians, turning
streets into sniper alleys.

By August of that year, shocking images emerged of emaciated Muslims
held in concentration camps. They were the target of his brutal
campaign of ethnic cleansing, to exterminate or expel Muslims and create
an ethnically pure Serb rump state inside Bosnia.

When I met Mladic and demanded answers about the bloodbath, like so
many of his type, he would smile behind cold eyes and insist that he was
only protecting his own people.

But throughout the '90s, as he turned Bosnia into the worst killing
fields in Europe since World War II, the evidence against him was
overwhelming. Peter Jennings was there, as well, as mortars rained
shells on Sarajevo's main marketplace.

JENNINGS: This will count as one of the worst attacks since this
war began.

AMANPOUR: And all of this was unfolding in the age of never again,
indeed, at the very same time as the U.S. Holocaust Museum was being
dedicated. And no less than the moral might of Holocaust survivor Elie
Wiesel was directed at President Clinton.

WIESEL: Mr. President, I cannot not tell you something. As a Jew,
I am saying that we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that
country.

AMANPOUR: But still, the worst was to come. On July 11, 1995,
Mladic's men stormed the tiny town of Srebrenica, and later Mladic
himself swaggered through, his own cameras in tow, directing his forces
to hand out chocolates to terrified children. Chillingly, he told these
civilians that they had nothing to fear.

But when the cameras were turned off, the real savagery began.
Women were raped. Men and boys were taken to open fields and executed
in cold blood, their bodies thrown into mass graves. More than 8,000
Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Mladic faces the war crimes tribunal at The Hague as
early as tomorrow, a court that the United States was instrumental in
creating. And now, with each passing year, it becomes less likely that
war criminals such as Mladic can escape unpunished.

That's it for our program today. And for all of us here in
Washington, thank you for watching. You can follow me all week on
Twitter and at abcnews.com. And be sure to watch "World News with David
Muir" later tonight. We hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday
weekend, and we hope to see you again next week.